Chuck Holton, a correspondent for the National Rifle Association's broadcast outlet NRATV, echoed a longtime white nationalist talking point when he accused the Democratic Party of trying to “import another group of voters” from “the Third World” in order to “to stay in power in perpetuity.”

During the January 4 edition of NRATV’s Stinchfield, host Grant Stinchfield attacked Democrats in Congress for allegedly creating “fugitive havens” instead of supporting “anything that will make us safer along the border.” Holton agreed, claiming “they don’t care about border security” because they want to “import a new populace that will vote for them by offering them all these free benefits.”

GRANT STINCHFIELD (HOST): I’ve seen no evidence that the Democrats have ever supported border security. Ever. They voted against Kate Steinle’s law. They voted against laws to keep gangbangers out. They love sanctuary cities. Give me one piece of evidence that the Democrats have supported anything that will make us safer along the border. All they have created are fugitive havens. Well, veteran Army Ranger and Frontlines correspondent Chuck Holton has been on this story for a very long time. Chuck, welcome to the program.

CHUCK HOLTON (NRATV CORRESPONDENT): Yeah, good to see you, Grant. You are absolutely right. They don’t care about border security and that’s because they are trying to put together a voter base that will keep them in power in perpetuity. And they know that the American people are not going to allow them to stay in power in perpetuity, and so essentially what they’re trying to do is import another group of voters. They’re trying to import a new populace that will vote for them by offering them all these free benefits. Look, we have to address these pull factors that are bringing people out of -- basically all over the Third World, it’s not just the Western Hemisphere, it’s not just Latin America. I’ve been down there on the border, and I’ve seen people from India and Cameroon and Pakistan and Nepal and Afghanistan and all over Africa, Somalia. They’re all coming north and they’re all looking for the same thing. And that is, to win that lottery ticket and get across that easy-to-climb border fence that we’re seeing right there, and coming into the United States so that they can get a lot of free stuff. And, really, who can blame them?

Holton has a well-documented track record of using racist rhetoric, such as complaining that former President Barack Obama left a “mocachinno stain” on America, fearmongering about the Black Lives Matter movement committing mass violence against whites, and demanding Black people “join us in respecting authority and taking responsibility for your own actions.”

Previously while speaking about immigration on NRATV, Holton repeatedly pushed the conspiracy theory that philanthropist George Soros is behind the migrant caravan, a remarkably similar conspiracy theory to the one that motivated a gunman who carried out a mass shooting in a Pittsburgh, PA, synagogue in October. He also said that the migrant caravan is “an invasion under the guise of migration.”

The NRATV correspondent also has a symbiotic relationship with white nationalists; he has previously repeated the white nationalist talking point that cultural “homogeneity” is responsible for low crime rates, repeatedly promoted the work of scientific racist Stefan Molyneux, and been praised by neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer.

A white nationalist writer who says he’s a canvasser for the gubernatorial campaign of Georgia Republican Brian Kemp is calling on voters to elect Kemp because, as he writes in a post on VDare, “I know everything I need to know about what happens when blacks are in charge from Detroit, Haiti, South Africa, etc.” Kemp is running against Democrat and former state House minority leader Stacey Abrams, who would be the country’s first Black female governor if elected.

In twopieces published this month on VDare, writer Nathan Doyle described himself as a canvasser for Kemp in the Atlanta area and documented his campaign experiences. It’s not immediately clear if Nathan Doyle is a pseudonym; the screen name for Doyle’s email address is “namelesswriter” and in 2015, editor Peter Brimelow indicated that most writers at the site use pseudonyms.

Both of Doyle’s pieces are full of racism. In an October 2 piece, he stated that Abrams “simply must be stopped,” writing: “I know everything I need to know about what happens when blacks are in charge from Detroit, Haiti, South Africa, etc.” In an October 22 piece, Doyle similarly wrote about politics: “As usual, the Left understands the racial dynamics ... while the clueless GOP/GAP insists upon feigning ‘colorblindness’ and quacking about the economy. As a canvasser for Kemp in the Atlanta area, I’ve seen the results. They’re food for thought.”

Doyle added that “blue” and “red” voters should “come together in defense of their shared whiteness” because “White Americans of all walks of life, like it or not, are in this demographic fight together.” He also called unmarried women “the white race’s foremost traitors” and wrote that “although Brian Kemp is likely to win this year’s Georgia gubernatorial race, he would not be able to in twenty years -- unless America’s post-1965 immigration disaster is abruptly ended.”

From the October 22 piece:

Overall, the issue that jumps out at me as I canvass: the need to find a way for the cultural alcoves of “Blue America” and “Red America” to come together in defense of their shared whiteness.

Both camps stand to lose a lot under any kind of anti-white Marxian regime. For example, Communist and Islamic governments treat both Christianity and homosexuals with great contempt, to say the least. Mass Hispanic and/or Muslim immigration and rampant black crime threaten both Blue America’s quiet neighborhoods, filled with overpriced coffee shops and artisanal trinket shops, and Red America’s bucolic swathes of rural farmland.

Put another way: Vermont and Wyoming would suffer equally if flooded with, say, 70,000 Syrians, 50,000 Nicaraguans, and 60,000 Nigerians in the span of a few years. An overpopulated America of Third Worlders will see the quality of public parks ruined right along with its public schools. White Americans of all walks of life, like it or not, are in this demographic fight together.

…

In the decades to come, as the white share of the population continues to dwindle, it will become more and more necessary for whites to vote as a block. This will necessitate candidates who walk a fine line on a number of cultural and economic issues while standing firm on everything racial: immigration, crime, Affirmative Action, Section Eight housing, etc. That will mean substantially moderating GOP positions on environmental questions, economic regulations, homosexual issues, and diehard “small government is always best” rhetoric.

Because, although Brian Kemp is likely to win this year’s Georgia gubernatorial race, he would not be able to in twenty years—unless America’s post-1965 immigration disaster is abruptly ended.

Someone who might though, would be a white candidate, who although as anti-immigrant and anti-crime as Kemp, attracted centrist whites and unmarried women (the white race’s foremost traitors) through policies favoring student loan forgiveness, expanded public transit, and more money for environmental preservation efforts.

When Rep. Dave Brat (R-VA) wanted to tout news about an anti-immigrant amendment he proposed in 2015, he went to a toxic source: VDare.

VDare is a white nationalist site that is dedicated to smearing immigrants. It haspublished such headlines as “One Problem With These Hispanic Immigrants Is Their Disgusting Behavior”; “Come Back, Stonewall Jackson! Hispanic Gangs Invade Shenandoah Valley”; “Indians Aren't That Intelligent (On Average)”; “America Does Not Need ANY Immigrants From Africa”; “Roll Over, JIHAD -- There’s Also HIJRA, Muslim Conquest By Immigration”; “National Data: Haitian Immigrants Pretty Useless -- But Haiti Still Needs Them More Than We Do.”

The site has recently been in the news because of its connection to members of President Donald Trump’s White House. The Washington Post’s Robert Costa reported on August 21 that White House chief economic adviser Larry Kudlow has hosted VDare Editor Peter Brimelow at parties over the years, including at Kudlow’s birthday party last weekend.

Kudlow told the Post that he doesn’t agree with Brimelow’s views on immigration and race and that he was unaware of Brimelow’s history. That explanation doesn’tmake sense given that Brimelow runs one of the country’s leading white nationalist websites. Brimelow was also an editor for the National Review and wrote racist commentary back then as well (he wasbooted from the publication in 1997); Kudlow has been an editor and writer for the National Review, including when Brimelow was still employed by the publication.

CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski also reported on August 19 that then-White House policy aide and speechwriter Darren Beattie spoke at the 2016 H.L. Mencken Club Conference alongside Brimelow. The White House fired Beattie as a result of his appearance.

Republicans have repeatedly promoted VDare over the years.

In a May 15, 2015, tweet, which hasn’t been previously reported, Brat promoted VDare’s praise of his “amendment to strip illegal immigrant ​recruitment language out of” the National Defense Authorization Act.

Last night the House passed Rep. Brooks' & my amendment to strip illegal immigrant ​recruitment language out of NDAA ​http://t.co/8eTiPP02ix

Brat linked to a May 14 VDare piece by anti-immigrant writer Brenda Walker, who praised Brat for having “spoken against the military amnesty scheme." She also wrote: "It is pretty amazing that the military has been hit with extreme cuts to personnel but now the Republican-run House Armed Services Committee has voted in favor of putting illegal aliens in the front of the line to serve. ... [radio host Laura] Ingraham brought up the security angle because the backgrounds of the illegals cannot be determined. What’s to keep Mexican cartel gangsters from joining up and learning America’s effective military techniques? There have been reports of foreign gangsters in the US military for years, so this is not idle paranoia.”

Shortly after promoting that VDare piece, Brat drewheadlines for comparing undocumented immigrants who want to serve in the military to ISIS. Brat stated on a conservative radio program: “I wanted to stand up and shout, I mean, ISIS is willing to serve in our military as well.”

Other Republican promotions of VDare include:

The Republican National Convention displayed a tweet from VDare in its convention hall in 2016.

Rep. Steve King (R-IA) hosts a page on his congressional website about “illegal immigrant stories” that cites VDare. King also appeared on a Conservative Political Action Conference panel with Brimelow in 2012.

Former Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO), who briefly ran for the GOP nomination for Colorado governor this election cycle, has been on VDare’s board and was scheduled to speak at its recent conferences but they were canceled by the venues because of VDare’s racism.

Seth Grossman, a Republican congressional nominee in New Jersey, promoted a VDare piece on the website of a conservative nonprofit group he founded. (National Republicans have withdrawn their support for Grossman because of his promotion of white nationalist propaganda.)

Jon Feere, who joined the Trump administration as a senior adviser with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, promoted VDare in a 2016 tweet.

Seth Grossman, a right-wing pundit who is now the GOP nominee in New Jersey’s 2nd Congressional District, previously touted opinion pieces that were published on two leading white nationalist websites. One of those posts, which Grossman praised, claimed that Black people “are a threat to all who cross their paths.”

In an email to Media Matters, Grossman attempted to distance himself from his endorsement of the racist "threat to all who cross their paths" piece and said he wants to help "take the Democratic training wheels off the black and Hispanic communities so they can succeed even more."

Grossman drewheadlines last month when American Bridge 21st Century PAC released a video of him saying in April, “The whole idea of diversity is a bunch of crap and un-American.” (American Bridge founder David Brock is also the founder of Media Matters.)

Grossman’s career as a pundit provides numerous other examples of him publicly spouting bigotry. CNN’s Nathan McDermott, Andrew Kaczynski, and Chris Massie reported that Grossman “has said diversity leads to Muslims killing Christians and that Kwanzaa is a fake holiday made by black racists to divide America,” among other remarks.

Media Matters previously documented bigoted and racist remarks about Black and Muslim people that Grossman had made in commentary pieces and on social media before he launched his run for Congress. He claimed to know “of many Africans who wish their ancestors had been taken to America as slaves” and said “Islam is a cancer” that has “already infected a billion people.” Grossman also promoted white nationalist propaganda.

He posted a link on his Facebook accounts to an openly racist piece on the white nationalist website American Renaissance that claimed Black people “are a threat to all who cross their paths.” American Renaissance is run by white nationalist writer Jared Taylor. The piece that Grossman linked to was written by an author who uses a pen name and claims to be “a public defender in a large southern metropolitan area.” The piece concluded of Black people:

My experience has taught me that we live in a nation in which a jury is more likely to convict a black defendant who has committed a crime against a white. Even the dullest of blacks know this. There would be a lot more black-on-white crime if this were not the case.

However, my experience has also taught me that blacks are different by almost any measure to all other people. They cannot reason as well. They cannot communicate as well. They cannot control their impulses as well. They are a threat to all who cross their paths, black and non-black alike.

Grossman praised the piece on his now-defunct Grossman4NJ page, writing: “Oy vay! What so many people, black, white and Hispanic, whisper to me privately but never dare say out loud publicly. Back in the Old Country, people were very careful about what they said for fear of retaliation. At one time, America was a free country and people were not afraid to express their true thoughts. Am just posting this as an individual and not on behalf of any organization.” Grossman also shared the piece on his personal Facebook page with an abbreviated version of the above commentary:

National Republicans have previously censored a GOP official for similar behavior. On New Year’s Eve in 2014, Republican National Committeeman Dave Agema posted the same American Renaissance piece on his Facebook account. The Republican National Committee executive committee later censured Agema in light of his sharing of that post and his “history of harmful and offensive rhetoric.” Grossman currently has the backing of the National Republican Congressional Committee (Update: Grossman's backing has been revoked).

Grossman also promoted the prominent white nationalist website VDare. In a December 2010 post on the website of a conservative nonprofit group he founded, Grossman highlighted a 2003 piece on VDare.com by anti-immigrant writer Allan Wall that complained that United States law enforcement officials allegedly can’t, “in the normal course of their duties, detain illegal aliens.” From Grossman’s post:

If the U.S. ever gets serious about immigration control, it has to improve cooperation between state and local police and immigration authorities – the way Mexico does.
And by the way, here in Mexico, local police are not only allowed, but required to enforce Mexican immigration law.http://www.vdare.com/awall/cops.htm

Media Matters asked Grossman for comment and clarification about why he shared those links. He distanced himself from the American Renaissance piece, writing: "I shared the post for the reasons I stated on 12/30/2014. ... I did not and do not agree with any of its claims, and never visited the website. I believe I got the post from Alan (sic) West who I thought was pointing out ignorance, hatred, and bigotry in both races, and the need to address them through open discussion." (Allen West, a right-wing pundit and former Republican congressman, praised the piece on December 29, 2014.)

Grossman stated of VDare: "I have never been to their site. I don't know anything about them. I have no idea who shared that piece with me many years ago." He also sent Media Matters a statement: "For more than 50 years, the Democratic Party set the agenda for black America. Far too many blacks still suffer from crime, poverty, and violence caused by that Democratic Party agenda. I am glad I helped Trump become President so he could change that agenda and get black and Hispanic Americans working again in record numbers. I am running for Congress so I can help Trump do even more to take the Democratic training wheels off the black and Hispanic communities so they can succeed even more."

King’s house.gov website features a page titled “Illegal Immigration Stories” that contains information about “illegal aliens” allegedly committing crimes. King has frequentlysmeared immigrants as prone to criminality; in reality, studies show that immigrationdoes not increase the rate of crime.

One of King’s citations on that “Illegal Immigration Stories” page is an April 2016 VDare piece headlined “Drunk Driving Illegal Alien Kills Woman, Is Granted Bail and Disappears.” The VDare piece, by anti-immigrant writer Brenda Walker, begins by stating: “Funny how after all these years of Americans being run down by drunk driving illegal aliens, the crime of inebriated vehicle operation by unlawful foreigners is still not taken seriously by authorities.”

The Southern Poverty Law Center wrote that VDare “regularly publishes articles by prominent white nationalists, race scientists and anti-Semites.” The Anti-Defamation League wrote that VDare is a racist site that “posts, promotes, and archives the work of racists, anti-immigrant figures, and anti-Semites.”

King praised Peter Brimelow, the white nationalist founder and editor of VDare, while appearing with him during a 2012 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) panel. Then-BuzzFeed reporter Rosie Gray wrote of King in February 2012:

Iowa congressman Steve King is unconcerned about the implications of his appearance during a CPAC panel on "The Failure of Multiculturalism" featuring a white nationalist author, Peter Brimelow.

"I don't know anything about that," King, who came to the event to talk about his English Language Unity Act, told BuzzFeed -- though he'd earlier told Brimelow that "I've read all your books!".

While King’s “Illegal Immigration Stories” page also cites news outlets including The Associated Press and The Boston Globe, it additionally uses sources such as the anti-immigrant hate group Federation for American Immigration Reform and Breitbart.com. Six of the Breitbart.com pieces cited by the page are by Katie McHugh, who was fired from the site for tweeting racist remarks last year (no small feat given the site’s open bigotry).

On Wednesday morning, President Donald Trump retweeted three anti-Muslim videos posted by Jayda Fransen, the deputy leader of the far-right, ultranationalist Britain First political organization, who has previously been “found guilty of religiously aggravated harassment.” Trump’s retweets of three videos attempting to link Muslims to violent crime, one of which has been debunked and the other two of which lacked context, were praised by white nationalists and far-right ideologues on Twitter and by internet trolls on 4chan, 8chan, and Reddit message boards. At least one prominent fake news website also defended Trump’s retweets.

Prominent white nationalist David Duke:

Trump retweets video of crippled white kid in Europe being beaten by migrants, and white people being thrown off a roof and then beaten to death, He's condemned for showing us what the fake news media WON'T. Thank God for Trump! That's why we love him!

When you get outraged over Trump retweeting Britain First yet simultaneously support Antifa, an extremist group that violently attacks people with bike locks, pepper spray & rocks for having a different opinion. pic.twitter.com/2Kfac2liNI

Trump may not be perfect, but just think: instead of a president ignoring and obfuscating the problems surrounding mass migration, we have a president literally retweeting Liveleak-style migrant crime videos. Important paradigm shift. pic.twitter.com/UDkcyH4mq4

A poster on 4chan’s “politically incorrect” message board: “Trump just went full alt right.”

Another 4chan/pol/ user wrote, “PRAISE TRUMP,” calling the videos Trump shared “/POL/-TIER MUSLIM CHIMPOUT VIDEOS” -- an indication that the videos were extreme enough to have been promoted by 4chan users.

One user on the 8chan/pol/ message board, in reference to Trump’s tweets, wrote, “I'm still not tired of winning. Sieg fucking heil.”

And on the pro-Trump subreddit “/r/The_Donald,” one user shared the videos Trump retweeted and directed other users to an online tool that can be used to download the videos, likely to share them through different mediums.

Fake news website Conservative Tribune praised Trump’s tweetstorm in a post, writing, “Refusing to cower to political correctness, President Donald Trump went rogue Wednesday, taking dead aim at radical Islamic terrorists and the violence they sow.”

Former Colorado congressman and onetime presidential candidate Tom Tancredo officially announced his candidacy for Colorado governor on October 31, ending months of speculation about his intentions. Tancredo has a long history of racist and bigoted behavior, and since he left Congress, he has embedded himself in far-right media as a columnist for Breitbart.com and has associated himself with the white nationalist website VDare.

This will be Tancredo’s third bid for Colorado’s highest office. The former congressman represented Colorado’s sixth congressional district for 10 years, and during his time in the House, he repeatedly proved himself to be a racist, anti-immigrant bigot. Tancredo once said that undocumented immigrants are “coming here to kill you and to kill me and our families” and proposed legislation that would have temporarily barred legal immigration. In 2007, Tancredo suggested that the United States bomb “the holy sites in Mecca and Medina” in Saudi Arabia. And during his laughable presidential campaign in 2007, he aired campaignads that claimed “open borders” were responsible for “vicious central American gangs” and “jihadists who froth with hate” coming to the United States.

In addition to his work at Breitbart, Tancredo has also written extensively for right-wing conspiracy site WorldNetDaily (WND), and has been published at VDare, an anti-immigrant site that multiplenews outlets and the Southern Poverty Law Centerhaveidentified as “white nationalist.” But Tancredo’s association with VDare runs deeper than his byline page suggests; he was scheduled to appear at two VDare conferences, but both events werecanceled after the venues learned more about the organization. After the Cheyenne Mountain Resort in Colorado pulled out of an agreement to host VDare’s 2018 conference, Tancredo blasted the state's Republican Party for failing to speak out in defense of the white nationalist group’s right of “free speech.” In August, Tancredo told the website Colorado Politics that he was “so mad” at Republicans for failing to speak out that he was mulling a run for governor, claiming that it wouldn’t “take much to push” him into the race.

And in September, Tancredo met with Bannon and discussed a possible gubernatorial run. If Bannon does offer his assistance, Tancredo will join a bevy of other far-right candidates whom Bannon has supported, including Roy Moore and Dave Brat, and could become the next soldier in Bannon’s “war” on the GOP establishment.

The Hilton El Conquistador in Tucson, AZ, has canceled plans to host an upcoming “immigration conference” by the white nationalist group VDare. It is the third time this year that VDare has unsuccessfully attempted to schedule a conference.

VDare runs a racist website that’s been heavily criticized by civil rights groups for pushing white nationalism. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the white nationalist site “regularly publishes articles by prominent white nationalists, race scientists and anti-Semites.” The Anti-Defamation League wrote that VDare is a racist site that “posts, promotes, and archives the work of racists, anti-immigrant figures, and anti-Semites.”

VDare is so bad that even the editor in chief for Breitbart privately called it “racist,” according to reporting by BuzzFeed (despite that private condemnation, Breitbart has publicly defended VDare).

VDare has been promoting an upcoming “immigration conference” in March that would have featured “all the most controversial immigration patriots in one place.” The stated venue for the conference was the Hilton El Conquistador in Tucson, AZ, which is owned by HSL Properties.

In a statement sent to Media Matters, the Hilton El Conquistador management announced that the hotel had canceled the event: "The safety and security of our guests and employees is of the utmost importance. After careful consideration, the hotel has decided to terminate its contract with VDare. We will not be hosting the event previously booked at the Hilton El Conquistador for March of 2018.”

VDare does not appear to have announced who would have spoken at the Tucson event. Past speakers have included Breitbart columnist and former Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO), who demonized immigrants as dangerous and disloyal invaders; writer John Derbyshire, who has described himself as “a mild and tolerant” “racist” and “homophobe” and was fired from the National Review after he penned a column suggesting that white and Asian parents warn their children about the supposed threats posed by black people; and VDare leader Peter Brimelow, who has warned that nonwhite immigrants are destroying the country.

The Colorado resort that was scheduled to host a conference for the white nationalist group VDare has canceled those plans.

As Media Mattersreported, VDare recently announced, and started taking reservations for, its April 2018 conference at the Cheyenne Mountain Resort in Colorado Springs, CO. The event was scheduled to feature “a weekend of candor, fellowship, and top-notch speakers, as we celebrate the shifting political tides and discuss the way forward for patriotic immigration reform and American national identity.”

Those plans were canceled today by the resort, which is a part of Benchmark Resorts & Hotels. The resort emailed the following statement: “Cheyenne Mountain Resort will not be hosting the VDARE Foundation in April of next year. We remain committed to respecting the privacy of guests at the resort.”

VDare regularly posts white nationalist content that argues against nonwhite immigration and attacks minorities. For its conference next year, VDare had similarly scheduled speakers with a history of pushing racist, anti-immigrant, and white nationalist views. Those speakers included Breitbart.com columnist and former Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO), who demonized immigrants as dangerous and disloyal invaders; writer John Derbyshire, who has described himself as “a mild and tolerant” “racist” and “homophobe” and was fired from the National Review after he penned a column suggesting that white and Asian parents warn their children about the supposed threats posed by black people; and VDare leader Peter Brimelow, who has warned that nonwhite immigrants are destroying the country.

Jason Kessler, the white supremacist who organized the recent August rally in Charlottesville, VA, has written multiple articles for VDare.

Numerousmediaoutlets based in Colorado covered VDare’s plans for the conference and noted the group’s white nationalist ideology. Anti-racism activists in the area organized against VDare’s plans and were scheduled to voice their opposition to the event. Colorado Springs Republican Mayor John Suthers issued a statement saying he “would encourage local businesses to be attentive to the types of events they accept and the groups that they invite to our great city” and the city wouldn’t “provide any support or resources” to the event.

White nationalists applauded President Donald Trump for giving a press conference where he cast “blame on both sides” for an August 12 white nationalist protest in Charlottesville, VA, that culminated in a neo-Nazi plowing his car into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing activist Heather Heyer and injuring 19 others.

During his August 15 remarks from Trump Tower, Trump also blamed the “alt left” for violence and defended an earlier protest held the evening of August 11 where white nationalists carried torches while shouting racist and anti-Semitic chants.

David Duke -- a white nationalist radio host, noted anti-Semite, and former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard -- wrote on Twitter, “Thank you President Trump for your honesty & courage to tell the truth about #Charlottesville & condemn the leftist terrorists in BLM/Antifa”:

Duke was an early Trump backer and has been a strong supporter of the president and his administration. In February 2016, Trump declined to denounce Duke after being pressed several times by CNN’s Jake Tapper during an appearance on State of the Union. In other instances, Trump has denounced Duke under pressure.

White nationalist website VDare used the presser to call Trump a “God-Emperor,” a common compliment for Trump among racists:

James Edwards, the host of white nationalist radio show The Political Cesspool, wrote, “Progress! @realDonaldTrump now puts #Charlottesville blame at the feet of 'Alt-Left' who came in 'without a permit'":

Before he organized the recent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, VA, Jason Kessler wrote for The Daily Caller and the white nationalist site VDare and appeared as a purported expert on Alex Jones’ Infowars network.

Kessler was the organizer for the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville that featured white supremacists and neo-Nazis. President Donald Trump responded to the violence by issuing a generic condemnation of problems "on many sides" and declining to specifically call out white supremacists -- behavior that fits his history of emboldening the white nationalist movement.

Right-wing media outlets like The Daily Caller have also played a role in cultivating white supremacist organizers like Kessler.

Kessler then wrote a May 14 piece about white supremacists Richard Spencer and Sam Dickson rallying in front of Confederate monuments. ProPublica subsequently reported that the Caller failed to disclose that Kessler “is supportive of white supremacist groups, and on the day of the march had himself made a speech to the protesters in which he praised fascist and racist organizations, thanked a prominent Holocaust denier, and declared the beginnings of a cultural ‘civil war.’” While the Caller suspended its relationship with Kessler, Executive Editor Paul Conner defended Kessler’s work:

“The story is factually accurate and plainly states what happened at the event,” said Paul Conner, executive editor of The Daily Caller. “But in light of his activism on the issue, we have mutually agreed to suspend our freelance relationship with him.”

Asked about the substance of Kessler’s speech in Charlottesville, Conner offered no comment on Kessler’s statements. In an email, he said only, “We pay writers for journalism, not their opinions.”

An editor’s note was appended to Kessler’s article after ProPublica reached out to the Caller about the piece, stating: “The author notified The Daily Caller after publication that he spoke at a luncheon May 14 on behalf of an effort to preserve the monument.”

Media Matters contacted Daily Caller editors this morning about the outlet’s relationship with Kessler, whether the editors regretted publishing him, and if they would consider publishing him in the future. Shortly afterward, the publication removed Kessler’s author page and all his pieces on the site. Media Matters followed up by asking for a clarification about why the site deleted those pieces. The Caller did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.

Screenshots of Kessler's Daily Caller work

Infowars has also had a role in promoting Kessler and his racist work.

Editor Paul Joseph Watson, who himself has a history of racism, aired a roughly 30-minute interview with Kessler in January to “discuss the insanity of the left and how they have lost all grip on reality.” The interview is featured on Alex Jones’ Youtube channel with the headline “Jason Kessler: Anti-White Racism Must End.” Infowars also posted a roughly 20-minute April interview with Kessler during which he warned Infowars viewers that there’s a “very pressing danger with these people” who are trying to take down Confederate statues. Both interviews promoted Kessler’s nonprofit and Twitter account.

Alex Jones aired a roughly 15-minute interview with Kessler on August 13, the day after the Saturday rally. During the segment, Jones complained that the media is “penalizing this guy because he’s saying one-third of the racist stuff that I disagree with against the [George] Soros group that’s a total cutout, just make us fight with each other. So how does media say he caused all the violence when clearly antifa was the ones attacking?” (Infowars has been claiming that philanthropist and one-timeMedia Matters donor George Soros has been purposely funding the Charlottesville violence.) Jones later said during the interview that Kessler walked into a “trap” set by Kessler's enemies by being at the Charlottesville rally this past weekend.

Kessler has also written several posts for the anti-immigrant white nationalist site VDare. A June 19 post (his most recent) concludes that the “governments of the West are waging a campaign of slow extermination against their own core populations. It is white genocide.”

VDare recently announced that it will host a conference next year at Cheyenne Mountain Resort in Colorado Springs, CO. The 2018 event will feature VDare Editor Peter Brimelow, Breitbart.com columnist and former Republican Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo, and writer John Derbyshire, who describes himself as a “mild and tolerant” “homophobe” and “racist.”

Brimelow has also contributedop-eds for The Daily Caller. His website posted a defense of the rally on August 12 by “Charlottesville Survivor,” which concluded that “it’s not Unite The Right that is ‘dividing’ America. Whites who aren’t comfortable with being dispossessed in every single Western country, or with seeing the symbols of their heritage wiped out, gathered to protest peacefully. … Why should Unite The Right apologize for anything? Indeed, how can the ‘Far Right’ be regarded as anything other than an incredibly moderate protest movement against a deliberate campaign of genocide?” (The white supremacists did not actually “protest peacefully.”)

UPDATE: Before he organized the August 12 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, VA, Jason Kessler wrote multiple articlesfor VDare. A June 19 post (his most recent) concludes that the “governments of the West are waging a campaign of slow extermination against their own core populations. It is white genocide.” VDare also posted a defense of the Charlottesville rally on August 12 which concluded that “it’s not Unite The Right that is ‘dividing’ America. Whites who aren’t comfortable with being dispossessed in every single Western country, or with seeing the symbols of their heritage wiped out, gathered to protest peacefully. … Why should Unite The Right apologize for anything? Indeed, how can the ‘Far Right’ be regarded as anything other than an incredibly moderate protest movement against a deliberate campaign of genocide?” (The white supremacists did not actually “protest peacefully.”)

The white nationalist and anti-immigrant hate group VDare will host its next conference at Cheyenne Mountain Resort in Colorado Springs, CO. The 2018 event will feature anti-immigrant writer Peter Brimelow, Breitbart.com columnist Tom Tancredo, and writer John Derbyshire, who describes himself as a “mild and tolerant” “homophobe” and “racist.”

Civil rights groups have heavily criticized VDare for its racism and anti-immigrant rhetoric. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), VDare is a white nationalist website that “regularly publishes articles by prominent white nationalists, race scientists and anti-Semites.” The Anti-Defamation League wrote that VDare is a racist site that “posts, promotes, and archives the work of racists, anti-immigrant figures, and anti-Semites.”

VDare recently announced, and started taking reservations for, its April 2018 conference at the Cheyenne Mountain Resort, which is a part of Benchmark Resorts & Hotels. A booking page for the event states that it will feature “a weekend of candor, fellowship, and top-notch speakers, as we celebrate the shifting political tides and discuss the way forward for patriotic immigration reform and American national identity.”

VDare attempted to hold its first public national conference at Tenaya Lodge at Yosemite National Park earlier this year, drawing criticism from Media Matters and SPLC. That event was also set to feature Brimelow, Tancredo and Derbyshire. The lodge subsequently took “steps to immediately cancel this booking” when it “became aware of the nature of VDare Foundation.” VDare responded by criticizing Media Matters for engaging in “cultural Marxism” and questioning whether “we live in a free country or not.”

In response to Media Matters’ inquiry about VDare’s 2018 conference, a Cheyenne Mountain Resort spokesperson gave the following statement: “Cheyenne Mountain Resort respects the privacy of its guests and does not comment on groups or individuals that hold meetings at the resort.”

VDare’s scheduled speakers for its 2018 conference have a history of pushing racist, anti-immigrant, and white nationalist views.

Tancredo has a long history of making anti-immigrant and racist statements. The former Colorado congressman once suggested that the United States bomb Mecca; criticized Miami, FL, for purportedly becoming “a Third World country” because so many people speak Spanish there; and proposed a “civics literacy test before people can vote.”

Derbyshire was fired from the National Review after he penned a column suggesting that white and Asian parents warn their children about the supposed threats posed by black people. Derbyshire has stated of his views: “I am a homophobe, though a mild and tolerant one, and a racist, though an even more mild and tolerant one, and those things are going to be illegal pretty soon, the way we are going.”

In a profile of Brimelow, SPLC wrote that he “is one of the leading voices in the anti-immigrant movement. Interestingly, he is himself an immigrant (from England), a fact that he regularly brings up when he worriedly notes that his son, with his ‘blue eyes’ and ‘blond hair,’ could grow up in an America in which whites have lost their population majority. For Brimelow, immigration itself is not the problem — it's the influx of non-whites that is destroying America.”

Far-right hate groups across extremist ideologies have united to attack and discredit their hate group designation by Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) in an attempt to regain legitimacy and rehab their images. Many hate groups have attempted to delegitimize the SPLC’s hate group label over the years, but their efforts have dramatically ramped up in 2017 in reaction to a series of escalating events including SPLC designating anti-LGBTQ group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) and anti-immigrant group Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) hate groups and media outlets accurately labeling these organizations as such in their reporting.

Who’s who, and why are they hate groups?

The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) is the largest anti-LGBTQ hate group in the nation, and, according to Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), it “specializes in supporting the recriminalization of homosexuality abroad, ending same-sex marriage, and generally making life as difficult as possible for LGBT communities in the U.S. and internationally.” ADF operates on $48 million-plus annual budget and has what it refers to as a “powerful global network” of over 3,100 ADF-trained “allied attorneys.” SPLC designated ADF a hate group because ADF’s leaders and its affiliated lawyers have “regularly demonized LGBT people, falsely linking them to pedophilia, calling them ‘evil’ and a threat to children and society, and blaming them for the ‘persecution of devout Christians.’” ADF’s influence is widespread. It has played a role in dozens of Supreme Court cases, including regarding abortion, religion, tuition tax credits, and LGBTQ issues; it has special advisory status at the United Nations; it has at least 55 affiliated lawyers serving in influential government positions at the state and federal levels; and it has infiltrated local school boards across the country.

ADF formally supported the criminalization of sodomy in the U.S. in 2003 when it filed an amicus brief in Lawrence v. Texas defending state sodomy laws which called “same-sex sodomy … a distinct public health problem.” ADF has also worked to criminalize gay sex abroad, including in Jamaica, Belize, and India, and is leading the national campaign for “bathroom bills” targeting transgender youth. One ADF attorney peddled the myth that Matthew Shepard’s violent murder in 1998 was not an anti-gay hate crime. SPLC designated ADF a hate group on February 15, but it wasn’t till early June that ADF started challenging the designation, attacking Judy Shepard, Matthew Shepard’s mother, for penning an op-ed about groups like ADF that “bullying LGBTQ children.” Since then, ADF and its allies have successfully pressured the nonprofit database GuideStar to reverse its decision of putting the SPLC hate group label on 46 nonprofit groups on its website. In a series of mediaappearances, ADF has also relentlessly attacked ABC and NBC for accuratelylabeling it a hate group in news reports regarding Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ speech at an ADF event.

The Family Research Council (FRC) is another anti-LGBTQ hate group that wields significant influence in the current administration; its senior fellow, Ken Blackwell, was officially appointed to President Donald Trump’s Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, which critics have called a voter suppression effort. FRC President Tony Perkins embraced and endorsed Trump as a candidate during the presidential election cycle (and met with him at the White House earlier this month). And at least four people, including Blackwell, who are affiliated with FRC were a part of Trump’s transition team. FRC has a budget of tens of millions of dollars and promotes the idea “that people can and should try to change their sexual orientation” or “just not act on it.” According to SPLC’s extremist file, FRC “often makes false claims about the LGBT community based on discredited research and junk science” in order to “denigrate LGBT people.” FRC’s official position is that “homosexual conduct is harmful to the persons who engage in it and to society at large” and “is by definition unnatural.” Former FRC Vice President Rob Schwarzwalder accused gay youth of joining the Boy Scouts of America “for predatory purposes,” and various FRC representatives and publications have repeatedly compared homosexuality to pedophilia. Peter Sprigg, a senior fellow at FRC, asserted that LGBTQ youth suicide rates would drop if the teenagers were “discourage[d] from self-identifying as gay, lesbian, or bisexual” and urged others “not to create a positive social environment for the affirmation of homosexuality.” In a 2010 appearance on MSNBC, Sprigg also said that the United States should “outlaw gay behavior.” In 2011, the FRC called for its supporters to pray for countries that had laws criminalizing sodomy and were being pressured by the U.S. to remove them, and it suggested that homosexuality “has had a devastating impact upon Africans,” citing the AIDS crisis as an example.

FRC has fought against its hate group designation since SPLC gave it the label in 2010. In that same year, the group launched a “Start Debating, Stop Hating” campaign in response to the label, which it called “slanderous.” FRC also took out a full-page ad in Politico as part of the campaign. After a gunman shot a security guard at FRC headquarters in 2012, Perkins blamed SPLC’s “reckless rhetoric” for the shooting and asserted that the shooter was “given a license to shoot an unarmed man by organizations” such as the SPLC. More recently, FRC joined other hate groups in sending a letter to GuideStar’s president demanding that he remove the hate group labels from its database and praised GuideStar when it decided to do so. FRC also led the “#SPLCexposed” hashtag campaign on Twitter, which attempted to delegitimize the hate group label and drew a number of hate groups to the campaign.

Liberty Counsel also famously represented Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis in litigation after she refused to issue marriage licenses to same and opposite-sex couples in 2015; Talking Points Memo reported that Staver “compared Davis’ plight to that of Jews in Nazi Germany” during a radio interview. Staver has also compared LGBTQ people to pedophiles, once saying that allowing gay youth and adults in the Boy Scouts will cause “all kinds of sexual molestation” and create a “playground for pedophiles to go and have all these boys as objects of their lust.” Liberty Counsel has called gay sex “harmful sexual behavior” and pushed the myth that LGBTQ people “can change.” Former Liberty Counsel attorney Matt Barber said that LGBTQ people “know intuitively that what they are doing is immoral, unnatural, and self-destructive,” adding that they have “tied their whole identity up in this sexual perversion.” Barber has also called “disease, depression, drug and alcohol abuse, and suicide … consequences” of being gay.

Staver signed the letter that asked GuideStar to remove hate group designations and accused SPLC of using the label as part of its “aggressive political agenda.” On June 28, Liberty Counsel filed a lawsuit against GuideStar, saying it and SPLC “are intent on destroying pro-family organizations,” and accused GuideStar’s CEO of “using GuideStar as a weapon to defame, harm, and promote his liberal agenda.” Liberty Counsel’s blog post on the subject also linked to the personal Twitter account of the CEO and his wife. GuideStar’s decision to remove hate group labels was reportedly in part because of “harassment and threats directed at our staff and leadership.”

The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) is a lobbyinghate group founded by white nationalistJohn Tanton. Tanton is currently editor and publisher of the quarterly journal The Social Contract, which, according to SPLC, has “claimed that multiculturalists are trying to replace ‘successful Euro-American culture’ with ‘dysfunctional Third World cultures.’" During his time at FAIR, Tanton wrote a series of memos that warned of a “Latin onslaught” and “depicted Hispanics as hyperactive breeders,” which caused many high-level conservatives to flee his orbit. FAIR has ties to a number of other extremists, including white supremacists Peter Brimelow and Jared Taylor and Holocaust denier Kevin MacDonald.

Tanton currently sits on FAIR’s board but has retired from the limelight. He was replaced by current President Dan Stein, who frequently appears in right-wing and mainstream media to promote anti-immigrant policies and smear immigrants. In one such interview, Stein claimed that “many [immigrants] hate America, hate everything that the United States stands for.” Stein has defended Tanton and, according to SPLC, “celebrated a new ‘disdain’ in the media and among intellectuals for ‘the political agenda of those who openly attack the contributions of Western Civilization.’"

In 2009, FAIR published a report titled “A Guide to Understanding the Tactics of the Southern Poverty Law Center in the Immigration Debate,” which smeared SPLC as a discredited entity and claimed that journalists have an unfavorable view of the organization. Since then, FAIR has attacked SPLC on Twitter. Dale Wilcox, president and general counsel of FAIR’s legal arm, the Immigration Reform Legal Institute (IRLI), signed the letter calling on GuideStar to remove its hate group labels. Wilcox also wrote an op-ed in Breitbart titled “Why the Mainstream Media Must Stop Citing ‘Anti-Hate’-Crusader Southern Poverty Law Center,” and his group has attacked GuideStar on Twitter for including the SPLC’s hate group labels.

Tanton also founded FAIR’s sister organization, the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS). SPLC labeled CIS a hate group in 2017 for peddling work by discredited white nationalists and eugenicists. CIS works as the research arm of what SPLC has dubbed “the nativist lobby,” the anti-immigrant lobbying effort spearheaded by groups Tanton founded, including FAIR, CIS, and NumbersUSA. CIS frequently publishes skewed research meant to denigrate immigrants and promote anti-immigration policies, claiming, for example, that immigrants are taking jobs away from native-born Americans and disproportionately using welfare benefits.

CIS Executive Director Mark Krikorian has actively disputed the hate group label by defending white nationalists and eugenicist pseudoscience. In an op-ed in The Washington Post in March, Krikorian complained that the SPLC “made a hate figure of John Tanton” and downplayed a CIS contributor’s assertion that Hispanic immigrants may never “reach IQ parity with whites” as merely “contentious.” He also called the “hate group” label “an attempt to delegitimize and suppress views regarding immigration held by a large share of the American public.” Krikorian and other CIS employees have repeatedly sought to smear SPLC, and Krikorian has used his platform to attack GuideStar for using SPLC’s hate group labels.

ACT for America has transformed into “the largest grassroots anti-Muslim group in America,” according to SPLC, which labels it a hate group. The group’s founder, Brigitte Gabriel, has been fearmongering that Muslim immigrants and refugees from the Middle East have transformed Europe into “Eurabia” and has declared that a practicing Muslim “cannot be a loyal citizen of the United States.” ACT often organizes conferences that convene anti-Muslim leaders and groups, including Frank Gaffney, head of hate group the Center for Security Policy. In 2008, ACT launched a campaign called Stop Shariah Now to fearmonger about Sharia “creeping” into western culture and, according to SPLC, “worked closely” with Gaffney “to push anti-Shariah legislation at the state level.”

Gabriel has attacked SPLC as biased against conservatives, and she was also one of the hate group leaders who signed the letter blasting GuideStar for using SPLC’s hate group labels. She has also penned her own letter to GuideStar defending her group and other hate groups.

March 17: The Washington Postpublished an op-ed by CIS Executive Director Mark Krikorian, who condemned the SPLC list and wrote that the “blacklist” was “an attempt to delegitimize and suppress views regarding immigration held by a large share of the American public.”

April 18: After more than two months, ADF issued a statement in which it responded to the SPLC designation by not responding to it: “ADF doesn't have time to respond to organizations who do nothing more than call names, create division and incite violence across the country in order to raise money."

May 15: Judy Shepard, the mother of 22-year-old Matthew Shepard, who was killed in anti-gay homicide, wrote an op-ed in Time magazine about “multimillion-dollar ‘hate groups’” such as ADF “bullying LGBTQ children” in an attempt to ban transgender people from using the restrooms that align with their gender identity.

May 17: The Federalist published an attack on SPLC’s hate group designation, comparing it to the “burn book” from the movie Mean Girls. The post accused SPLC of using the hate group label “to manipulate the lives of others, smear reputations, control personal relationships, and reap the spoils,” as well as calling it an attempt to “control all speech.” Numerous hate group representatives, including Krikorian, and accounts tweeted out the story. In fact, retweeting this story became one of ADF’s first official attacks on SPLC’s designation.

June 7: Time magazine updated Shepard’s op-ed with a response from ADF defending its work and bringing up her son’s death:

True hate is animosity toward others, and it often takes the form of violence. Sadly, Ms. Shepard knows what that is. She lost her son to senseless violence. We at ADF condemn all such manifestations of true hate. They have no place in our society. We remain steadfast in affirming basic human rights and dignity through debate, dialogue, and principled advocacy.

June 8: Nonprofit database GuideStar flagged 46 nonprofits designated as hate groups by SPLC as such on its website.

June 9: ADF published a full response to Shepard’s op-ed on its blog, which more forcibly attacked Shepard and accused her of “name-calling and slander” and spreading a “lie.” The post also spread myths about transgender people and said that allowing them to use the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity “compromises the privacy and dignity of young students who do not want to share overnight facilities, locker rooms, showers, and restrooms with the opposite sex.”

June 21: Hate groups united to pen a letter to GuideStar asking the nonprofit to remove the hate group labels, writing that the designation is “a political weapon targeting people it deems to be its political enemies” and calling SPLC’s list of hate groups “ad hoc, partisan, and agenda-driven.” Co-signers of the letter included representatives from IRLI, FRC, Liberty Counsel, ACT for America, ADF, and numerous others.

June 21: On the day the hate groups sent the letter to GuideStar, The Wall Street Journal published an op-ed by The Weekly Standard’s Jeryl Bier attacking GuideStar and accusing the SPLC of “besmirching mainstream groups like the FRC.” Bier has appeared on FRC President Tony Perkins’ radio show. In the op-ed, Bier asserted that “SPLC’s work arguably contributes to the climate of hate it abhors” and lamented that journalists are citing SPLC’s designation.

June 23: GuideStar removed the hate group labels from its website, citing “harassment and threats directed at our staff and leadership.” Hate groups including FAIR and FRC celebrated the decision.

June 26: A Washington Post report on GuideStar’s reversal quoted a number of hate groups sharing talking points about the designation, including that it was linked to the shooting at FRC and “the recent shooting of House Majority Whip Steve Scalise.” The report highlighted the hate groups’ letter accusing the designation of being “partisan” and wrote that Christians “said they’d been targeted as hateful for opposing same-sex marriage.”

June 27: Vice published a profile about ADF “stealthily seizing power in the nation's public school systems,” its “unmistakable effort to make schools hostile to queer students,” and its hate group designation. ADF refused to speak to Vice for the article.

June 28: Politico magazine published a lengthy article questioning whether SPLC’s hate group designation is “overstepping its bounds.” The article specifically lent credibility to hate groups CIS, which the report noted has “been invited to testify before Congress more than 100 times,” and FRC, which it called “one of the country’s largest and most established Christian conservative advocacy groups.” The right-wing Media Research Center highlighted the piece on its website the same day it was published.

June 28: Liberty Counsel filed a lawsuit against GuideStar, saying it and SPLC “are intent on destroying pro-family organizations” and accused GuideStar’s CEO of “using GuideStar as a weapon to defame, harm, and promote his liberal agenda.” Liberty Counsel’s blog post on the subject also linked to the personal Twitter account of the CEO and his wife.

July 11: Attorney General Jeff Sessions gave a closed-door speech to ADF at its “Summit on Religious Liberty” in California.

July 12: ABC and NBC reported on the fallout from Sessions’ speech to ADF and noted SPLC’s “hate group” designation for the group.

July 13: ADF demanded a retraction and apology from ABC for its report, calling it “defamatory” and “journalistic malpractice.”

July 13: Sessions’ speech, which the Department of Justice refused to release, was leaked to anti-LGBTQ website The Federalist. In the speech, Sessions compared the so-called battle for “religious freedom” to Martin Luther King Jr.’s March on Washington.

July 14: ADF began an aggressive media strategy, with its representatives appearing on Fox News’ Fox & Friends, The Story with Martha MacCallum, and Tucker Carlson Tonight to attack the SPLC and attempt to discredit ABC and NBC. ADF’s representatives either repeated the “journalistic malpractice” line during the interview or called the outlets’ reporting “unethical” or “fake news.” Meanwhile, right-wing media also rushed to ADF’s defense.

July 16: FRC also launched a counteroffensive against the hate group designation aiming to “expose” the SPLC as “a left wing smear group who has become exactly what they set out to fight, spreading hate and putting targets on people's backs.” FRC urged supporters to use the hashtag #SPLCexposed. Hate groups such as white nationalist website VDARE, ACT for America, CIS, and FAIR, or their representatives, all joined FRC on Twitter using the hashtag.

July 19: The Wall Street Journal published an op-ed by Edwin Meese, who has worked with FRC and other groups, calling ADF “a respected civil-rights law firm.” In the op-ed, Meese also repeated ADF’s “journalistic malpractice” charge against ABC and NBC for giving “credence to the SPLC’s recklessly defamatory hate list” in their reporting. Meese wrote that their reporting “is a prime reason” for Americans’ distrust of the media and called on reporters to “stop spreading malignant propaganda.”

July 19: Forbespublished an op-ed by Brian Miller of the Center for Individual Rights attacking ABC and NBC’s use of the “hate group” label and arguing that the use of the label was an attempt to “shut down conversation.” Miller concluded that “the very security that is necessary for diverse people to contribute to our social fabric” is at stake “in our climate of heated rhetoric.”

VDARE.com, which the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has described as a “white nationalist” and “anti-immigration hate website,” has joined other hate groups in an official smear campaign against SPLC launched by anti-LGBTQ Family Research Council (FRC).

FRC and other organizations that SPLC has labeled hate groups launched a campaign on July 17 accusing SPLC of “fueling hate, killing free speech and even encouraging terrorist-style attacks on those it doesn’t agree with,” as the Washington Examiner described it. The campaign included a “planned Monday tweetstorm” and the suggestion that its supporters use the hashtag “#SPLCexposed.”

FRC and other hate groups have repeatedlypushed the myth that SPLC labels as “hate groups” those organizations that it “simply disagree[s] with.” In fact, SPLC has more extensive criteria for the distinction. It designates anti-LGBTQ hate groups as such when they knowingly spread “demonizing lies about the LGBT community,” engage in “baseless, incendiary name-calling,” or actively work to criminalize LGBTQ people. Regarding anti-immigrant groups, SPLC wrote that though “many groups criticize high levels of immigration and some … typically confront or harass individual immigrants and their supporters, anti-immigrant hate groups generally go further by pushing racist propaganda.” It continued that most anti-immigrant hate groups “subscribe to one of two conspiracy theories that have no basis in fact,” including that Mexico is trying to “‘reconquer’ the American Southwest” and that “Mexico, Canada and the United States are secretly planning to merge into a European Union-like entity.” SPLC also clearly defines its anti-Muslim hate group label, noting that these groups “hold conspiratorial views regarding the inherent danger to America by its Muslim-American community” and view Muslims as “intent on undermining and eventually replacing American democracy and Western civilization with Islamic despotism.”

White nationalist hate website VDARE joined FRC’s campaign on July 18, tweeting the #SPLCexposed hashtag alongside an accompanying article from the site that called SPLC the “Southern Poverty Lie … Center” and touted the #SPLCexposed Twitter campaign. The article also attempted to cast doubt on the reasoning behind SPLC’s designation of anti-immigrant hate group Center for Immigration Studies (CIS).

According to SPLC, VDARE, founded in 1999 by English immigrant Peter Brimelow, is an “anti-immigration hate website” with a “white nationalist ideology” that frequently publishes articles advocating for a white America and filled with anti-Semitic tropes. One article asserted that “America was defined — almost explicitly, sometimes very explicitly — as a white nation, for white people.” Another claimed that Jewish people’s “objective has been control of economic resources and political power.” Yet another article lamented that “whites are doing something no other people have ever done in human history” by welcoming “replacement by aliens” and sacrificing “our interests to those of favored minorities.”

SPLC noted that the website also posts stories by prominent anti-Semite Kevin MacDonald and that even Brimelow acknowledges that VDARE “hosts ‘white nationalists’” but argues that they merely “aim to defend the interests of American whites”:

While acknowledging that his site hosts "white nationalists" like Taylor, Brimelow argues that they are merely people who "aim to defend the interests of American whites. They are not white supremacists. They do not advocate violence. They are rational and civil. They brush their teeth. But they unashamedly work for their people." Brimelow goes on to say that as dark-skinned immigration from the Third World continues, "this type of interest-group ‘white nationalism’ will inexorably increase." What Brimelow doesn’t mention is that VDARE.com also posts stories by one of the most important anti-Semites in America, Kevin MacDonald, a professor of psychology at the California State University, Long Beach. MacDonald believes Jews are genetically driven to undermine the power of whites by pushing such things as Third World immigration.

These groups have historically attempted to distance themselves from white nationalist organizations, often using the issue as a wedge to argue that they should not be given the same “hate group” designation as groups such as the Ku Klux Klan. FRC has frequently fought against its designation, including the resulting association “with neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan.” Mark Krikorian, the executive director of CIS, lamented that SPLC “conflates groups that really do preach hatred, such as the Ku Klux Klan and Nation of Islam, with ones that simply do not share SPLC’s political preferences” in a Washington Post op-ed. By bolstering FRC’s anti-SPLC campaign, VDARE shows that the line between white nationalist and other hate groups is not as clear as the FRC and others would like you to believe.

A Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate who was backed by, and affiliated with, segments of the “alt-right” media nearly won the state’s June 13 gubernatorial primary.

Corey Stewart, chairman of the Prince William County Board of Supervisors, narrowly lost to front-runner Ed Gillespie, former chairman of Republican National Committee (RNC), by only slightly more than a percentage point.

After the close primary election, “alt-right” figures cheered Stewart’s near-upset. Cernovich tweeted that the result showed “GOP globalists” that they're “all going to have primary challengers.” He also said that Stewart “showed them what one man can do with his populist revolution.” Another “alt-right”-affiliated troll, Jack Posobiec, tweeted, “Gillespie outspent Stewart 5-to-1 and barely won the race. Take note, Establishment.” VDare, another “alt-right”-connected outlet which frequently publishes articles written by white nationalists, claimed Stewart’s “heroic effort” against “useless consultantcuck Ed Gillespie” showed “nationalism lives.”